An attempt to know, understand (and ultimately, transform) that which occurs on the fields of play - India (her politics, media, music) and beyond ...

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Puzzles

In a recent literary review, an author was described in the following gushing manner. Who is the author thus described?

History provides us with personalities who were equally at ease with words and lethal weapons.

Each time his performance is impeccable because he activates different aspects of his complex personality. Quite uniquely, he was endowed with boundless curiosity, an acute eye for detail, self-knowledge, logical thinking, and candour that is both disarming and moving.

Equally varied is his style, which ranges from the Pinteresque to the Bollywood script.

Almost invariably, he is economical with words. His sinewy and lucid prose is on a par with the best writing of Ernest Hemingway or Scott F. Fitzgerald.

Anybody who has been in love would identify with the prose and poetry of X. That in short is the greatness of X, an accomplished wielder of both pen and sword.

Hint: The Sikh Guru, Nanak, wrote a series of complaints against X in the Guru Granth Sahib, claiming X "terrified Hindustan" and was a "messenger of death". He also claimed that women with braided hair "were shaved with scissors, and their throats were choked with dust" and that "The order was given to the soldiers, who dishonored them, and carried them away."

"It remains unclear exactly how much the government has spent, because the state oil giant, Petróleos de Venezuela, has not made detailed financial records public, and its balance sheets have been shielded from independent audits. Mega-projects, like Mr. Chávez's utopian plan of building a gas pipeline through the Amazon from Venezuela to Argentina, are not likely to materialize. "

and-

"The programs, government officials contend, have helped reduce poverty to below 30 percent of the population. Social scientists in Venezuela dispute the claim, saying that poverty still hovers at well over 50 percent. "

Couple of days later The Hindu was on its euology trail.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/08/stories/2006040801881000.htm

I wonder why the Hindu felt the need to publish something on Chavez when him or his govt. wasn't in the news otherwise. Was it the usual commie rag burnishing its comrade's image for its own elite sake who might have been influenced by NYT? What gives?

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